The Plot Thickens: More On The Weekly $88 Billion "Other" Outflow

Following our observations last night that there was an $88 billion swing in the weekly "other" deposit account with the Fed, some have quickly come to the fore to "debunk" our observation that this is a rather curious swing in total notional, by claiming that this can easily be explained away using cash demands at the GSE level. There are two problems with this "explanation" - i) it does not actually explain the swing, and ii) it is incomplete. As noted previously, Fannie tapped the Treasury for $7.8 billion in Q3, while the quarterly Freddie Mac injection amounted to $6.0 billion. In other words the combined $13.8 billion cash draw need (assuming a deferral to the funds flow) would almost explain the $88 billion weekly shift... if only it weren't for the other $74.2 billion, which not even fully unmatched (i.e., assuming no new issuance) weekly debt maturity and interest repayment comes close to filling the gap. Furthermore, the "Other" cumulative delta for November and the YTD period is $61.5 billion and $115 billion, respectively, which is nowhere near close to explaining the total funding needs of these entities. What may explain the delta, and what these "debunkers" have missed is the full definition of the "Deposits with Federal Reserve Banks, other than Reserve Balances: Other (WOTHLB)" from the St Louis Fed which is as follows: "Other deposits at Federal Reserve Banks include balances of international and multilateral organizations with accounts at FRBNY, such as the International Monetary Fund, United Nations, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank); the special checking account of the ESF (where deposits from monetizing SDRs would be placed); and balances of a few U.S. government agencies, such as the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." In other words, the GSEs may well be a part of last week's cash outflow package, but they certainly are not the full story, and other entities such as the IMF, the UN, the World Bank and the legendary in some circles ESF are all part of the "other" reserve "use of funds" destination. In other words, someone (presumably someone with some urgent window dressing needs), and it sure wasn't only (if at all) the GSEs, had a massive capital shortfall and had to resort to Fed deposits. And by the looks of things, these could have easily been "international" entities tasked with bailing out the world such as the IMF.

Lastly, and we are the first to point out that have no answers as to what or who is the ultimate use of cash, we merely note the move, even if the swing is explained entirely by the GSEs, the fact that someone or something needed $88 billion in the past week, an all time record, should probably be cause for concern.